Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The New Xbox 360 is Revealed at Microsoft E3 2010
The new Xbox 360 has now been confirmed and will be available to purchase as of next week beginning 21st June worldwide. The new console was announced at this year's E3 conference and with it some very cool new additions that will make this new Xbox 360 a truly unbeatable games console.
One of the major differences is the new look its slimmer and claims to be whisper silent which is great news for the movie goers, They have also added built-in wireless supporting the new 'n' network which boasts a faster and more secure connection from the Xbox to your router.
Long gone is the hard drive they have also added this as a permanent fixture meaning no more accessories all over the place, the hard drive is now built into the console, meaning you will transfer data via a cable, with all these loose ends out the way you have your Xbox and slick black new look.
To top of the E3 even Microsoft also announced that they will not be changing the price of this New Xbox 360 and will be charging the same regular price as the original Xbox! The problem being that nearly everyone has an original Xbox 360 and would not simply go and replace something that isn't broken.
A website online freebies4me is giving away a new Free Xbox 360 to every member who joins the site and invites their friends in on the action. This will allow people to upgrade their Xbox 360 without paying a single penny! Grab your free Xbox 360 today without any hidden costs to getting yours straight to your door!
Owner of Free Xbox 360 @ Freebies4me.co.uk - William S
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=William_S_Smith
One of the major differences is the new look its slimmer and claims to be whisper silent which is great news for the movie goers, They have also added built-in wireless supporting the new 'n' network which boasts a faster and more secure connection from the Xbox to your router.
Long gone is the hard drive they have also added this as a permanent fixture meaning no more accessories all over the place, the hard drive is now built into the console, meaning you will transfer data via a cable, with all these loose ends out the way you have your Xbox and slick black new look.
To top of the E3 even Microsoft also announced that they will not be changing the price of this New Xbox 360 and will be charging the same regular price as the original Xbox! The problem being that nearly everyone has an original Xbox 360 and would not simply go and replace something that isn't broken.
A website online freebies4me is giving away a new Free Xbox 360 to every member who joins the site and invites their friends in on the action. This will allow people to upgrade their Xbox 360 without paying a single penny! Grab your free Xbox 360 today without any hidden costs to getting yours straight to your door!
Owner of Free Xbox 360 @ Freebies4me.co.uk - William S
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=William_S_Smith
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Prince of Persia - A Comprehensive Review of the Multiplatform Hit
The Prince of Persia games have been around since the days of the Apple II and have graced previous generations of consoles like the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The last reincarnation of the Persian Prince on these platforms were fantastic. The first Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time was a platforming gem, whilst The Warrior Within took the fighting mantel. Lastly the Two Thrones melded these two important elements into one great game, finishing off the story brilliantly.
Now the Prince is reborn on the new generation of consoles with the Prince of Peria on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the trusty PC. The Ubisoft team have gone with a completely new art and graphical direction, with the game looking like a beautiful painted canvas. The new cell shaded design is an instant win, for me, and the new Prince and his sexy side-kick Elika both look stunning.
The basic story premise is Elika's father and ruler of the kingdom destroys the Tree of Life, which contains the God Ahriman. With the Tree of Life destroyed, Ahriman begins to infect the kingdom and its lands with Corruptions. It's the Prince's and Elika's job to heal lands known as fertile grounds to restore power back to the Tree of Life and stop the evil god Ahriman escaping. Nice and simple!
You as the Prince has to jump, swing and do your usual platforming tricks to get to where Elika has to use her magic powers to heal the fertile grounds. When I first started I expected to be doing the many button platform moves that engrossed me in The Sands of Time, however, I was met with the same style of "platforming" as in Assassin's Creed, which makes platforming more like the gimmicky quick-time events that plague most video games these days and takes away the skill needed. This did not impress me! To do a wall run and then jump to an opposite ledge, all I had to do was press X (yes I'm playing on the PS3....), then wait till he got near to the platform I am suppose to jump to and press X again. Also, the places where you are suppose to wall jump are nicely marked out for you with what looks like cat scratches along the wall. To be brief, I am not happy with the platforming element one bit! But I will say the animations are superb.
Moving on, once you reach the healing place in the fertile ground it is time to do battle! Each fertile grounds has a sort of boss which you have to fight and kill to allow Elika to heal the grounds and restore power to the Tree. And here is where my other moan is. After the great fighting you could do in The Warrior Within, we get this drivel!! Block....keep blocking, right my turn, gauntlet attack, sword attack the Elika's magical attack then repeat. Fun I say in a sarcastic tone. Yes you can mix it up a bit more and unlock new moves and attacks, and there is the odd God of War style button mashing element, but really it is a pathetic attempt by Ubisoft, again in the mould of the repetitiveness of Assassin's Creed. The enemies are different and do have distinct attacks, but when they do attack all you have to do is press block, then do which ever combo you have memorized.
Once disposed of the enemies its time for Elika to heal the fertile grounds. Once she has performed this piece of magic, you watch as the plagued lands and corruption that resides there is destroyed and the groun transformed magically back to its fertile state. Honestly, when I first saw this, I thought it was majestic. Once the lands have been transformed back to their fertile state, you notice orbs floating around the fertile grounds. These are light seeds, they are what Elika (you really) need to open up new grounds for you to heal and also you can improve Elika's magical powers and your own skills.
With your task complete it is now time to move on to the next fertile ground to heal. Fortunately the ever so helpful Elika has another useful trick up her sleeve. She provides you with a Fable II style compass, but unlike Fable II's disappears after a few seconds. Don't know why they didn't leave it on permanently. Oh well, a little more on Elika! Elika is important to the Prince, as whenever the Prince is in trouble, for example you thought you were playing the Sands of Times and thought you had to do proper platforming but finding yourself tumbling to your death, Elika pours out a magical hand that grabs you and pulls you back to your original starting point of the jump you messed up. Nothing like the rewind ability in Sands of time one bit...Also she is there to help you jump further with a quick tap of the triangle button or Y button I presume for 360 gamers. She also elaborates on the plot of the story more as you have the ability to talk to and understand more about Ahriman, the Tree of Life etc.
Overall, the new Prince of Persia is a good game. It has luscious graphics and animations, especially when you heal the fertile grounds. However, it is let down the same way Assassin's Creed was let down, it is overly repetitive and it doesn't allow for skill to complete the game, but opts for a a quick-time event styled press a button and let the animations do the rest. Elika is a nice addition but could be used more, and being able to play her in a co-op mode would be fantastic, more so when you are fighting the Corrupted. The story is simplistic and won't win any awards, with the voice typically American. I'm sorry but when did a Persian Prince have a Yank accent.
I was looking forward to this game greatly as I loved the previous incarnation of the Prince, but with new incarnation I am unfortunately disappointed. Its too simplistic and repetitive and no replayability in it. The other problem is it has the potential to be a much better game. I would recommend people to play it if they have never played previous Prince of Persia Games, but to true fans of the series be warned...
Graphics - 9/10 Story - 6/10 Gameplay - 5/10
Overall - 6.5/10
I'm a huge fan of video games and gaming culture, and I have the awesome chance to write for video games blogs and pop culture sites. For great deals on video games and peripherals, visit http://videogamestarstore.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rich_Thorp
www.computerpuppy.com
Now the Prince is reborn on the new generation of consoles with the Prince of Peria on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the trusty PC. The Ubisoft team have gone with a completely new art and graphical direction, with the game looking like a beautiful painted canvas. The new cell shaded design is an instant win, for me, and the new Prince and his sexy side-kick Elika both look stunning.
The basic story premise is Elika's father and ruler of the kingdom destroys the Tree of Life, which contains the God Ahriman. With the Tree of Life destroyed, Ahriman begins to infect the kingdom and its lands with Corruptions. It's the Prince's and Elika's job to heal lands known as fertile grounds to restore power back to the Tree of Life and stop the evil god Ahriman escaping. Nice and simple!
You as the Prince has to jump, swing and do your usual platforming tricks to get to where Elika has to use her magic powers to heal the fertile grounds. When I first started I expected to be doing the many button platform moves that engrossed me in The Sands of Time, however, I was met with the same style of "platforming" as in Assassin's Creed, which makes platforming more like the gimmicky quick-time events that plague most video games these days and takes away the skill needed. This did not impress me! To do a wall run and then jump to an opposite ledge, all I had to do was press X (yes I'm playing on the PS3....), then wait till he got near to the platform I am suppose to jump to and press X again. Also, the places where you are suppose to wall jump are nicely marked out for you with what looks like cat scratches along the wall. To be brief, I am not happy with the platforming element one bit! But I will say the animations are superb.
Moving on, once you reach the healing place in the fertile ground it is time to do battle! Each fertile grounds has a sort of boss which you have to fight and kill to allow Elika to heal the grounds and restore power to the Tree. And here is where my other moan is. After the great fighting you could do in The Warrior Within, we get this drivel!! Block....keep blocking, right my turn, gauntlet attack, sword attack the Elika's magical attack then repeat. Fun I say in a sarcastic tone. Yes you can mix it up a bit more and unlock new moves and attacks, and there is the odd God of War style button mashing element, but really it is a pathetic attempt by Ubisoft, again in the mould of the repetitiveness of Assassin's Creed. The enemies are different and do have distinct attacks, but when they do attack all you have to do is press block, then do which ever combo you have memorized.
Once disposed of the enemies its time for Elika to heal the fertile grounds. Once she has performed this piece of magic, you watch as the plagued lands and corruption that resides there is destroyed and the groun transformed magically back to its fertile state. Honestly, when I first saw this, I thought it was majestic. Once the lands have been transformed back to their fertile state, you notice orbs floating around the fertile grounds. These are light seeds, they are what Elika (you really) need to open up new grounds for you to heal and also you can improve Elika's magical powers and your own skills.
With your task complete it is now time to move on to the next fertile ground to heal. Fortunately the ever so helpful Elika has another useful trick up her sleeve. She provides you with a Fable II style compass, but unlike Fable II's disappears after a few seconds. Don't know why they didn't leave it on permanently. Oh well, a little more on Elika! Elika is important to the Prince, as whenever the Prince is in trouble, for example you thought you were playing the Sands of Times and thought you had to do proper platforming but finding yourself tumbling to your death, Elika pours out a magical hand that grabs you and pulls you back to your original starting point of the jump you messed up. Nothing like the rewind ability in Sands of time one bit...Also she is there to help you jump further with a quick tap of the triangle button or Y button I presume for 360 gamers. She also elaborates on the plot of the story more as you have the ability to talk to and understand more about Ahriman, the Tree of Life etc.
Overall, the new Prince of Persia is a good game. It has luscious graphics and animations, especially when you heal the fertile grounds. However, it is let down the same way Assassin's Creed was let down, it is overly repetitive and it doesn't allow for skill to complete the game, but opts for a a quick-time event styled press a button and let the animations do the rest. Elika is a nice addition but could be used more, and being able to play her in a co-op mode would be fantastic, more so when you are fighting the Corrupted. The story is simplistic and won't win any awards, with the voice typically American. I'm sorry but when did a Persian Prince have a Yank accent.
I was looking forward to this game greatly as I loved the previous incarnation of the Prince, but with new incarnation I am unfortunately disappointed. Its too simplistic and repetitive and no replayability in it. The other problem is it has the potential to be a much better game. I would recommend people to play it if they have never played previous Prince of Persia Games, but to true fans of the series be warned...
Graphics - 9/10 Story - 6/10 Gameplay - 5/10
Overall - 6.5/10
I'm a huge fan of video games and gaming culture, and I have the awesome chance to write for video games blogs and pop culture sites. For great deals on video games and peripherals, visit http://videogamestarstore.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rich_Thorp
www.computerpuppy.com
Friday, June 18, 2010
Red Dead Redemption Overview
Red Dead Redemption is an action packed video game developed for PlayStation 3 and Xbox by the well-known RockStar San Diego. The ultimate version of the game is scheduled to be released by the mid of 2010. And not to mention the eager fans counting down the moments.
The game is made on the same line as the GTA series; however Red Dead Redemption offers a far wider scope to the gamer for experiencing with the game environment. Red Dead Redemption makes it possible for the players to determine how he would like to play by giving dozens of possibilities. The sense of morality present in the game, provides an extraordinary touch to the game. It is set around the final days of the American Wild west.
Red Dead Redemption is going to be available on-line on Amazon which has already opened its bookings expecting the usual rush and obsession for it.
The game play is quite remarkable. You can find somewhere almost 40 animals that are waiting to be hunted on participants steps. The various places and accents have given it quite a realistic appealing to it. An extra nice thing is the range of guns which has gamer has got accessed to.
The arena is actually large, spanning three distinctive areas and check posts having different types of inhabitants. Red Dead Redemption consists of many gun play and combating sequence with a third person perspective from the player. This game has even an option of on line play where in a maximum of 16 people can fight with each other in a single session of the game.
The product is compatible with Xbox and PlayStation. It can be played in PC as well with a PC version which will be available soon, although it is not confirmed by the developer. Red Dead Redemption is going to be sold outside of US as a limited edition product and has planned to launch it in Australia as well as Great Britain.
If you want to see more about this game visit the trailers and movies page. Also you can preorder Red Dead Redemption and get it as soon it is released.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Ionescu
http://www.buyreddeadredemption.com/
The game is made on the same line as the GTA series; however Red Dead Redemption offers a far wider scope to the gamer for experiencing with the game environment. Red Dead Redemption makes it possible for the players to determine how he would like to play by giving dozens of possibilities. The sense of morality present in the game, provides an extraordinary touch to the game. It is set around the final days of the American Wild west.
Red Dead Redemption is going to be available on-line on Amazon which has already opened its bookings expecting the usual rush and obsession for it.
The game play is quite remarkable. You can find somewhere almost 40 animals that are waiting to be hunted on participants steps. The various places and accents have given it quite a realistic appealing to it. An extra nice thing is the range of guns which has gamer has got accessed to.
The arena is actually large, spanning three distinctive areas and check posts having different types of inhabitants. Red Dead Redemption consists of many gun play and combating sequence with a third person perspective from the player. This game has even an option of on line play where in a maximum of 16 people can fight with each other in a single session of the game.
The product is compatible with Xbox and PlayStation. It can be played in PC as well with a PC version which will be available soon, although it is not confirmed by the developer. Red Dead Redemption is going to be sold outside of US as a limited edition product and has planned to launch it in Australia as well as Great Britain.
If you want to see more about this game visit the trailers and movies page. Also you can preorder Red Dead Redemption and get it as soon it is released.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Ionescu
http://www.buyreddeadredemption.com/
Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2 - Review
When Infinity Ward released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare even they could not of expected the mass success of the game, it quickly climbed the most played lists and has since remained there, until now. With the release of Modern Warfare 2 the hype was unbearable and Infinity Ward has a lot to live up to with gamers everywhere expecting something approaching demi-god status.
I cant help but feel that the game was to hyped up, making it almost impossible to live up to the image of the game everyone had in there heads, but if you ignore the hype and just play the game you quickly realise that Infinty Ward has done something amazing again.
While there's no major change in the formula, run, gun and shoot they have polished it until it gleams. Once again Infinity Ward have proved themselves the master of set piece's with some stunning locations, settings and set pieces that will stick in your mind for a long time to come. Storming the Gulag, fighting outside of the white house and sneaking through snow storms are just some of the things the player will experience throughout the rather dissapointingly short campaign mode.
All of these amazing battles show of the game's graphics which are frankly amazing with some brutal animations and mixed with the first person view you get dragged into the game easily, providing you with an intense experience.
This intensity is constant throughout the game, it never lets up and has a level of intensity that very few other games can even come close to matching, though sometimes it just feels to much and you find yourself wishing for just a second or 2 of breathing space that never comes.
Thankfully the pacing is good, one minute your storming a prison and the next your sneaking through a snow storm using a heartbeat sensor to elude enemy patrols, it keeps you on your toes and you never have time to get bored thanks to the short missions, each one never lasts to long so it keeps your attention and you never get bored of one level.
However this translates into an extremely short campaign mode, lasting around 6 hours even on Veteran mode. it's over far to quickly, though due to the games intensity it's understandable as I doubt Infinity Ward could of kept the games flatout pace for a 10 hour campaign.
Thankfully Spec-op's mode gives the game some extra lifespan, there a series of 23 short missions that can be played in 2 player co-op mode, giving it extra appeal. there's a good range of missions from race's, defending a place or assaulting estate house's and sneaking through enemy patrols. there all levels from the singleplayer, just with there objective's changed and there only a few minutes long but it does add some welcome lifespan to a short singleplayer mode.
The story could of been very good in this game, however most people are going to find it hard to follow simply due to it being very disjointed as you constantly jump from character to character. it's incredibly hard to follow whats going on and why it's happening as your dragged from country to country and never getting a chance to get any feeling what so ever towards the game characters. I simply didn't care about the characters around me and the person as i was playing as, there effectively blank slates.
Of course I cant review a Call of Duty game without talking about the multiplayer which made the original Modern Warfare so popular. keeping the original formula, Infinity Ward chose to give us more customisation and choice's, creating a diverse system. You now have access to a vast range of attachments for your guns, ranging from thermal sights to shotgun's that attach to your assault rifle, along with a perk that now allows you to add 2 attachments to an weapon.
Killstreaks have now become customisable and have a large range to choose from, such as sentry guns and harrier airstrikes. It's more over the top and unrealistic than the original and you can certainly argue it's even more unbalanced. The ability to gain a tactical nuke if you get a 25 killstreak was not a good choice as it now encourages kill boosting so they can gain that instant win.
is it original? no. does it change much from Modern Warfare? no.
Is it the most intense action shooter of the year? yes.
Whilst it does not change anything in the shooter genre or add any original idea's of it's own it still provides a thrilling, if short, campaign and one of the finest multiplayers out there.
It's not the perfect game that everyone was so hyped about, but it's still a dam good game.
SCORE'S:
Graphics: 92% Highly detailed graphics and amazing scenes add up to a graphically impressive game
Gameplay: 94% still the smoothest and most polished shooter out there
Lifespan: 88% this can vary, the singleplayer is very short but the multiplayer could keep you hooked for a long time.
Overall: 93% A visually stunning shooter with a fine multiplayer but lacks anything original or any real changes from Modern Warfare 1 and an exceptionally short campaign.
Please visit my website for more reviews, news and previews:
http://wolfsgamingblog.wordpress.com for all your gaming news,reviews and previews.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Baden_Ronie
I cant help but feel that the game was to hyped up, making it almost impossible to live up to the image of the game everyone had in there heads, but if you ignore the hype and just play the game you quickly realise that Infinty Ward has done something amazing again.
While there's no major change in the formula, run, gun and shoot they have polished it until it gleams. Once again Infinity Ward have proved themselves the master of set piece's with some stunning locations, settings and set pieces that will stick in your mind for a long time to come. Storming the Gulag, fighting outside of the white house and sneaking through snow storms are just some of the things the player will experience throughout the rather dissapointingly short campaign mode.
All of these amazing battles show of the game's graphics which are frankly amazing with some brutal animations and mixed with the first person view you get dragged into the game easily, providing you with an intense experience.
This intensity is constant throughout the game, it never lets up and has a level of intensity that very few other games can even come close to matching, though sometimes it just feels to much and you find yourself wishing for just a second or 2 of breathing space that never comes.
Thankfully the pacing is good, one minute your storming a prison and the next your sneaking through a snow storm using a heartbeat sensor to elude enemy patrols, it keeps you on your toes and you never have time to get bored thanks to the short missions, each one never lasts to long so it keeps your attention and you never get bored of one level.
However this translates into an extremely short campaign mode, lasting around 6 hours even on Veteran mode. it's over far to quickly, though due to the games intensity it's understandable as I doubt Infinity Ward could of kept the games flatout pace for a 10 hour campaign.
Thankfully Spec-op's mode gives the game some extra lifespan, there a series of 23 short missions that can be played in 2 player co-op mode, giving it extra appeal. there's a good range of missions from race's, defending a place or assaulting estate house's and sneaking through enemy patrols. there all levels from the singleplayer, just with there objective's changed and there only a few minutes long but it does add some welcome lifespan to a short singleplayer mode.
The story could of been very good in this game, however most people are going to find it hard to follow simply due to it being very disjointed as you constantly jump from character to character. it's incredibly hard to follow whats going on and why it's happening as your dragged from country to country and never getting a chance to get any feeling what so ever towards the game characters. I simply didn't care about the characters around me and the person as i was playing as, there effectively blank slates.
Of course I cant review a Call of Duty game without talking about the multiplayer which made the original Modern Warfare so popular. keeping the original formula, Infinity Ward chose to give us more customisation and choice's, creating a diverse system. You now have access to a vast range of attachments for your guns, ranging from thermal sights to shotgun's that attach to your assault rifle, along with a perk that now allows you to add 2 attachments to an weapon.
Killstreaks have now become customisable and have a large range to choose from, such as sentry guns and harrier airstrikes. It's more over the top and unrealistic than the original and you can certainly argue it's even more unbalanced. The ability to gain a tactical nuke if you get a 25 killstreak was not a good choice as it now encourages kill boosting so they can gain that instant win.
is it original? no. does it change much from Modern Warfare? no.
Is it the most intense action shooter of the year? yes.
Whilst it does not change anything in the shooter genre or add any original idea's of it's own it still provides a thrilling, if short, campaign and one of the finest multiplayers out there.
It's not the perfect game that everyone was so hyped about, but it's still a dam good game.
SCORE'S:
Graphics: 92% Highly detailed graphics and amazing scenes add up to a graphically impressive game
Gameplay: 94% still the smoothest and most polished shooter out there
Lifespan: 88% this can vary, the singleplayer is very short but the multiplayer could keep you hooked for a long time.
Overall: 93% A visually stunning shooter with a fine multiplayer but lacks anything original or any real changes from Modern Warfare 1 and an exceptionally short campaign.
Please visit my website for more reviews, news and previews:
http://wolfsgamingblog.wordpress.com for all your gaming news,reviews and previews.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Baden_Ronie
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Welcome to our video game review blog
We are going to be providing as many video game reviews as we possibly can and give you our unbias views on the games. Thanks for reading
Friday, June 19, 2009
Fable 2 Review - Countless Choices and Options, None of Which Are Fun
Fable 2
Score: 5.8
Systems: Xbox 360
Genre: Adventure
Length: 12 hours
Difficulty: 5
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: 10/21/08
Pros
- Large variety of skills to upgrade and use in combat
- World is vast and beautiful
Cons
- Combat system is repetitive and easy to manipulate
- Far too many side quests, none of which are fun
- The countless choices have little impact on actual gameplay
- Buying houses, furniture, vegetables and getting jobs don't belong in games
Fable 2 is yet another over-rated game that focuses too much on side quests that simply aren't fun and leaves the main campaign boring and repetitive. Similar to the distractions that made Metal Gear Solid 4, Spore and Grand Theft Auto IV boring games, Fable 2 gets distracted from providing meaningful and interesting gameplay. Far too much effort was placed on meaningless tasks that don't materially affect gameplay, such as getting married, choices between good and evil and jobs to earn money.
The main campaign involves traversing a large world and fighting a series of non-descript enemies that lack variety. The actual fighting mechanics quickly devolve into button mashing regardless of your preferred method of dispensing with your foes. The end result is a game that strays into many different gameplay elements but never makes any of them particularly fun. The developers simply forgot to make the game fun. Apparently they knew this was a problem when they released a statement asking people to have non-gamers try the game. Apparently it was made for people who don't know what to demand from a game rather than traditional gamers who have more discerning tastes and demand higher forms of entertainment.
The crux of Fable 2 is choices. The main adventure is littered with a myriad of choices to help or harm people. If you choose to help people, then you are revered by citizens and gain their favor. If you choose the path of the dark side, then people will fear and despise you. It's amazing that so much time was spent on this gameplay element, but it actually has very little impact on the actual game. The only material effect is how people react to you and evil characters' complexions will deteriorate into a purple monster with horns. When you go into town, citizens will run in fear from evil heroes and may charge you higher prices for goods. You can reduce any price hikes by simply scaring them into lower prices though.
Any benefits from being a good person can be earned as an evil hero by scaring people or stealing from them as an evil person. There are just different means to the same ends. Without a material impact to your choices other than people calling you a murderer and running from you, it's really hard to take these choices seriously. The entire system falls apart and becomes more of a nuisance than a unique aspect to tinker with.
The Fable 2 world is vast and includes a number of towns and people to interact with. You can choose to be a law-abiding citizen or you can just kill people for their goods, money and gifts. If you kill people or get caught stealing, then you should expect the police to quickly arrive to keep the peace. They will give you the choice to pay a fine, complete a community service task, or you can resist arrest. The community service is typically just a simple task to help someone or kill some bandits. If you resist arrest, then expect to be constantly chased by guards in town that you must fight.
This entire crime punishment system is extremely easy to circumvent. All you have to do is continually commit to community service tasks that you don't ever complete. After choosing to complete one of these tasks, the guards will leave you alone and give you a few days to finish your work. If you don't finish the task, you can simply request another task. The result is that you can do whatever you want in town without ever suffering any negative consequence. The only other noticeable effect is that your reputation follows you to every town you visit and people will fear you and call you a thief or a murderer. For a game so focused on choices, that seems like an easy choice to me: just steal and kill as much as you want without ever getting punished.
There are also a wide variety of choices for how you interact with people in town. You can choose to be nice by telling jokes or complimenting people to gain their favor or you can be mean by insulting them or giving rude gestures to lose their favor. There are also seductive gestures to attract people of the opposite sex. If you show enough interest in someone, then you can eventually propose to them by giving them a ring. After purchasing a house, you will be married to your fiancée. If you have unprotected sex (yes the game actually has condoms to prevent pregnancy and STD transmission), then you will likely have a child.
Like the rest of the game, the entire marriage and family system is extremely simple. The main result of a family is a budget drain on your income. If you keep your spouse happy, then you will get a gift from them when you arrive home from adventuring. You can also name your child. That's about it. For a system that took so much work to incorporate into the game, you'd hope there would be more to it, such as training your spouse and kid to aid you in your adventures. Nope, there's nothing like that in this game. If you like this boring gameplay and are a glutton for punishment, you are able to become a polygamist and have more than one family in the world. Like the rest of Fable 2, there isn't much interesting depth here to keep you coming back for more of these Brady Bunch antics.
Towns offer a wide variety of things to do, but almost all of them either have no point or are extremely boring. You can get a job to make money, but why would you want to do that when you could be fighting monsters and playing the main campaign. We all have jobs, and we leave them to have fun playing games rather than to start another job inside a game. If you choose to take one of these jobs, you will enter a world of hurt involving extremely repetitive tasks that require no skill. As a blacksmith or wood cutter, you are simply timing button presses to a sliding scale. If you become a bar tender, you simply hold down a button to the end of a meter to pour a full glass of beer. None of these tasks ever change no matter how much you get promoted. Other jobs involve fetching people or items, such as the bounty hunter job.
You can also earn money by playing some games. These games mimic real-world games such as craps, card games and slots. A significant amount of effort went into differentiating these games from their real life counterparts. This becomes obvious when you watch the 5 minute tutorials that teach how to play the games. All of the games involve mere chance and require no skill on your part. Why would throwing dice be more interesting than actually playing the game's main quest? It's really absurd how much effort went into these games rather than making the main quest more interesting.
A number of possibilities are available in towns. You can choose to steal from merchants. When you attempt to steal, an icon appears to let you know if someone is watching you. If you are seen pilfering the store, then a guard will approach to punish you.
You can also choose to buy a wide variety of food and items with a myriad of different qualities. It's really perplexing why people would care so much about different grades of meat, fish, pies, fruits and vegetables. There's even tofu! The only way these different types of food impacts gameplay is that you will gain weight if you eat too many fatty foods, such as meat and pies. However, gaining weight doesn't change your speed or the amount of damage you do in combat, so why should you care unless you are a narcissist?
You can also buy houses and shops. Then you can change your properties' rent or the shop item's selling prices to affect your profits. Other than additional profits, the only impact to raising prices is your alignment becomes more evil. If you decide to live in a house, you can go out and buy furniture, which increases the house's value. Yes, you can actually choose to spend your free time looking at different grades of furniture in a video game. If that doesn't put you to sleep, I don't know what will.
The game also gives you a dog to accompany you through most of your tasks. His main purpose is to help you find buried treasures or hidden treasure that are off the main paths. He can also be trained to improve his treasure sniffing abilities to find more valuable loot than worthless things such as rancid tofu. If you knock an enemy down in a fight, your dog will also pounce on top of him to cause some additional damage.
With so many side quests and distractions, you'd think the game is a social interactions simulator and there weren't any problems in the world. If you ever get out of town, you'll realize there is the typical world coming to an end plotline along with an antagonist to stop. Your main objective is to gather three other heroes to combine forces and stop the world from becoming enslaved. The story unfolds through a series of tasks strewn across a large world with various enemies to defeat.
In order to progress through the story and gain new tasks, you must increase your renown throughout the world by helping people. The world of Fable 2 is large and these tasks are scattered across its many locales. To help ensure you don't get lost trying to find your next task, the game includes a glowing trail for you to follow to your next objective. Once you have traveled to an area, you can choose to save time by letting the game transport you to your destination.
Combat is resolved by defeating enemies with melee fighting mechanics, shooting foes or employing magic. The associated skills of strength, skill and will increase as you use them in combat. Each downed enemy drops experience based on the ability type you use to defeat them. If you perform well in a fight by winning quickly or taking little damage, then you'll be rewarded bonus experience. Then you can spend the experience to further hone these skills. Increasing some skills can provide new abilities such as sword counters and combos, but most upgrades simply cause more damage or increase your life meter rather than adding any depth.
Strength skills include causing more melee damage, reducing damage you take and increasing your life bar. Skill abilities revolve around improving shooting accuracy, damage and your ability to avoid enemy strikes. Will abilities include a variety of spells.
Direct damage spells hurt enemies with elements, such as fire, electricity, and blades. You can choose to cause more damage to a specific target or distribute your love through an area of effect spell. There are also indirect spells, such as raise dead to summon minions to aid your cause and charm spells to temporarily remove some foes from the fight by confusing them. The magic system is oddly unbalanced. Magic spells are cast without limit because you don't spend mana points to cast spells. The result is you can just sit back and cast unlimited spells if you create a buffer against enemy attacks, such as summoning a horde of undead creatures with the raise dead spell.
While there are a variety of different abilities, fights generally devolve into simple button mashing. You'll either madly press buttons to hack and slash with your melee weapons, shoot with your crossbow or gun or continually cast your spells. There's very little depth in the actual encounters. Almost all enemies are dispatched with the same maneuvers regardless of how different they look. The only exceptions are the large trolls, which have specific weaknesses to target. Most of the campaign involves these repetitive fights, which makes it more of an effort in patience to endure the game's monotonous encounters rather than having fun.
Most fights are rather easy, but even encounters that may offer a challenge are simple because there is no real consequence to losing a fight. If you run out of health, you are knocked out rather than dying. The only downside to getting KOed is that you will lose any ungathered experience. You can eat food or drink potions to increase your health, but there's really no point in wasting your time buying the food and eating it. Just make sure to gather any experience if you are low on health and then you won't lose anything by being knocked out. You'll be revived to the same fight without having to walk back to the encounter and you won't waste any money on healing items. So you can just mash buttons without paying attention to your health level because losing a fight has no negative consequence. These ridiculous gameplay elements further reduce the point of the fights and the campaign itself.
There is also the option of join a friend's campaign in the game's co-op mode. As with most games, playing the game with a friend can make it more fun. It's pretty cool that the game is flexible enough that you and your friend don't even have to be in the same place. You can choose to take on different tasks and not be in each other's vicinity. While co-op mode generally add to the overall experience, it's hard to say it makes a huge difference considering it doesn't fix the game's numerous other problems.
If you can endure the boring main quest to the end, you are rewarded with a horrid ending. I'm not talking about an ending movie. I won't give anything away, but it's important to note that there isn't a final confrontation. After pouring hours into a boring campaign and exploring mundane side quests, Fable 2 simply continues to underwhelm with a slow boring end to the game that you have little control over. Well, at least the game's boring features are consistent from its beginning to its ultimate ending.
The game's vast world includes a wide variety of landscapes. From the dreary swamps to the lush hilly areas to the dark caves lit by torchlight, the world of Fable 2 is a beautiful place to explore. The only downside is that its ambitious long draw distances coupled with numerous enemies do create noticeable framerate hiccups throughout the quest.
Overall, Fable 2 promises a lot. It allows you to explore towns and make many choices. There are many side quests, jobs, businesses to buy and people to interact with, but none of these distractions are interesting. The main quest and its combat system have a wide variety of skills and enemies to fight but none really differentiate themselves from each other. The end result is a game that fails to entertain or involve you regardless of what you are doing in the game. It simply isn't fun, no matter what you do or what choices you make in its elaborate world.
Make sure to visit our site to also view the game's video review, gameplay videos and images.
Roger Riley (aka Rabid Rabbit)
PoweredUpGamers.com [http://www.poweredupgamers.com]
I'm an avid gamer that's gotten tired of extremely predictable inflated review scores by the large video game sites. I started my own site, PoweredUpGamers.com, with a friend of mine to provide truly objective game reviews and opinions so gamers can read the truth about a game before buying it. If you are like many gamers and agree with these often differing and more critical opinions, we welcome you to visit our site. In addition to written reviews, we also have video reviews, opinions, a blog, and game images. Our growing community enjoys posting comments in articles and the forums and playing games in our arcade while earning points for their accounts.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roger_Riley
Score: 5.8
Systems: Xbox 360
Genre: Adventure
Length: 12 hours
Difficulty: 5
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: 10/21/08
Pros
- Large variety of skills to upgrade and use in combat
- World is vast and beautiful
Cons
- Combat system is repetitive and easy to manipulate
- Far too many side quests, none of which are fun
- The countless choices have little impact on actual gameplay
- Buying houses, furniture, vegetables and getting jobs don't belong in games
Fable 2 is yet another over-rated game that focuses too much on side quests that simply aren't fun and leaves the main campaign boring and repetitive. Similar to the distractions that made Metal Gear Solid 4, Spore and Grand Theft Auto IV boring games, Fable 2 gets distracted from providing meaningful and interesting gameplay. Far too much effort was placed on meaningless tasks that don't materially affect gameplay, such as getting married, choices between good and evil and jobs to earn money.
The main campaign involves traversing a large world and fighting a series of non-descript enemies that lack variety. The actual fighting mechanics quickly devolve into button mashing regardless of your preferred method of dispensing with your foes. The end result is a game that strays into many different gameplay elements but never makes any of them particularly fun. The developers simply forgot to make the game fun. Apparently they knew this was a problem when they released a statement asking people to have non-gamers try the game. Apparently it was made for people who don't know what to demand from a game rather than traditional gamers who have more discerning tastes and demand higher forms of entertainment.
The crux of Fable 2 is choices. The main adventure is littered with a myriad of choices to help or harm people. If you choose to help people, then you are revered by citizens and gain their favor. If you choose the path of the dark side, then people will fear and despise you. It's amazing that so much time was spent on this gameplay element, but it actually has very little impact on the actual game. The only material effect is how people react to you and evil characters' complexions will deteriorate into a purple monster with horns. When you go into town, citizens will run in fear from evil heroes and may charge you higher prices for goods. You can reduce any price hikes by simply scaring them into lower prices though.
Any benefits from being a good person can be earned as an evil hero by scaring people or stealing from them as an evil person. There are just different means to the same ends. Without a material impact to your choices other than people calling you a murderer and running from you, it's really hard to take these choices seriously. The entire system falls apart and becomes more of a nuisance than a unique aspect to tinker with.
The Fable 2 world is vast and includes a number of towns and people to interact with. You can choose to be a law-abiding citizen or you can just kill people for their goods, money and gifts. If you kill people or get caught stealing, then you should expect the police to quickly arrive to keep the peace. They will give you the choice to pay a fine, complete a community service task, or you can resist arrest. The community service is typically just a simple task to help someone or kill some bandits. If you resist arrest, then expect to be constantly chased by guards in town that you must fight.
This entire crime punishment system is extremely easy to circumvent. All you have to do is continually commit to community service tasks that you don't ever complete. After choosing to complete one of these tasks, the guards will leave you alone and give you a few days to finish your work. If you don't finish the task, you can simply request another task. The result is that you can do whatever you want in town without ever suffering any negative consequence. The only other noticeable effect is that your reputation follows you to every town you visit and people will fear you and call you a thief or a murderer. For a game so focused on choices, that seems like an easy choice to me: just steal and kill as much as you want without ever getting punished.
There are also a wide variety of choices for how you interact with people in town. You can choose to be nice by telling jokes or complimenting people to gain their favor or you can be mean by insulting them or giving rude gestures to lose their favor. There are also seductive gestures to attract people of the opposite sex. If you show enough interest in someone, then you can eventually propose to them by giving them a ring. After purchasing a house, you will be married to your fiancée. If you have unprotected sex (yes the game actually has condoms to prevent pregnancy and STD transmission), then you will likely have a child.
Like the rest of the game, the entire marriage and family system is extremely simple. The main result of a family is a budget drain on your income. If you keep your spouse happy, then you will get a gift from them when you arrive home from adventuring. You can also name your child. That's about it. For a system that took so much work to incorporate into the game, you'd hope there would be more to it, such as training your spouse and kid to aid you in your adventures. Nope, there's nothing like that in this game. If you like this boring gameplay and are a glutton for punishment, you are able to become a polygamist and have more than one family in the world. Like the rest of Fable 2, there isn't much interesting depth here to keep you coming back for more of these Brady Bunch antics.
Towns offer a wide variety of things to do, but almost all of them either have no point or are extremely boring. You can get a job to make money, but why would you want to do that when you could be fighting monsters and playing the main campaign. We all have jobs, and we leave them to have fun playing games rather than to start another job inside a game. If you choose to take one of these jobs, you will enter a world of hurt involving extremely repetitive tasks that require no skill. As a blacksmith or wood cutter, you are simply timing button presses to a sliding scale. If you become a bar tender, you simply hold down a button to the end of a meter to pour a full glass of beer. None of these tasks ever change no matter how much you get promoted. Other jobs involve fetching people or items, such as the bounty hunter job.
You can also earn money by playing some games. These games mimic real-world games such as craps, card games and slots. A significant amount of effort went into differentiating these games from their real life counterparts. This becomes obvious when you watch the 5 minute tutorials that teach how to play the games. All of the games involve mere chance and require no skill on your part. Why would throwing dice be more interesting than actually playing the game's main quest? It's really absurd how much effort went into these games rather than making the main quest more interesting.
A number of possibilities are available in towns. You can choose to steal from merchants. When you attempt to steal, an icon appears to let you know if someone is watching you. If you are seen pilfering the store, then a guard will approach to punish you.
You can also choose to buy a wide variety of food and items with a myriad of different qualities. It's really perplexing why people would care so much about different grades of meat, fish, pies, fruits and vegetables. There's even tofu! The only way these different types of food impacts gameplay is that you will gain weight if you eat too many fatty foods, such as meat and pies. However, gaining weight doesn't change your speed or the amount of damage you do in combat, so why should you care unless you are a narcissist?
You can also buy houses and shops. Then you can change your properties' rent or the shop item's selling prices to affect your profits. Other than additional profits, the only impact to raising prices is your alignment becomes more evil. If you decide to live in a house, you can go out and buy furniture, which increases the house's value. Yes, you can actually choose to spend your free time looking at different grades of furniture in a video game. If that doesn't put you to sleep, I don't know what will.
The game also gives you a dog to accompany you through most of your tasks. His main purpose is to help you find buried treasures or hidden treasure that are off the main paths. He can also be trained to improve his treasure sniffing abilities to find more valuable loot than worthless things such as rancid tofu. If you knock an enemy down in a fight, your dog will also pounce on top of him to cause some additional damage.
With so many side quests and distractions, you'd think the game is a social interactions simulator and there weren't any problems in the world. If you ever get out of town, you'll realize there is the typical world coming to an end plotline along with an antagonist to stop. Your main objective is to gather three other heroes to combine forces and stop the world from becoming enslaved. The story unfolds through a series of tasks strewn across a large world with various enemies to defeat.
In order to progress through the story and gain new tasks, you must increase your renown throughout the world by helping people. The world of Fable 2 is large and these tasks are scattered across its many locales. To help ensure you don't get lost trying to find your next task, the game includes a glowing trail for you to follow to your next objective. Once you have traveled to an area, you can choose to save time by letting the game transport you to your destination.
Combat is resolved by defeating enemies with melee fighting mechanics, shooting foes or employing magic. The associated skills of strength, skill and will increase as you use them in combat. Each downed enemy drops experience based on the ability type you use to defeat them. If you perform well in a fight by winning quickly or taking little damage, then you'll be rewarded bonus experience. Then you can spend the experience to further hone these skills. Increasing some skills can provide new abilities such as sword counters and combos, but most upgrades simply cause more damage or increase your life meter rather than adding any depth.
Strength skills include causing more melee damage, reducing damage you take and increasing your life bar. Skill abilities revolve around improving shooting accuracy, damage and your ability to avoid enemy strikes. Will abilities include a variety of spells.
Direct damage spells hurt enemies with elements, such as fire, electricity, and blades. You can choose to cause more damage to a specific target or distribute your love through an area of effect spell. There are also indirect spells, such as raise dead to summon minions to aid your cause and charm spells to temporarily remove some foes from the fight by confusing them. The magic system is oddly unbalanced. Magic spells are cast without limit because you don't spend mana points to cast spells. The result is you can just sit back and cast unlimited spells if you create a buffer against enemy attacks, such as summoning a horde of undead creatures with the raise dead spell.
While there are a variety of different abilities, fights generally devolve into simple button mashing. You'll either madly press buttons to hack and slash with your melee weapons, shoot with your crossbow or gun or continually cast your spells. There's very little depth in the actual encounters. Almost all enemies are dispatched with the same maneuvers regardless of how different they look. The only exceptions are the large trolls, which have specific weaknesses to target. Most of the campaign involves these repetitive fights, which makes it more of an effort in patience to endure the game's monotonous encounters rather than having fun.
Most fights are rather easy, but even encounters that may offer a challenge are simple because there is no real consequence to losing a fight. If you run out of health, you are knocked out rather than dying. The only downside to getting KOed is that you will lose any ungathered experience. You can eat food or drink potions to increase your health, but there's really no point in wasting your time buying the food and eating it. Just make sure to gather any experience if you are low on health and then you won't lose anything by being knocked out. You'll be revived to the same fight without having to walk back to the encounter and you won't waste any money on healing items. So you can just mash buttons without paying attention to your health level because losing a fight has no negative consequence. These ridiculous gameplay elements further reduce the point of the fights and the campaign itself.
There is also the option of join a friend's campaign in the game's co-op mode. As with most games, playing the game with a friend can make it more fun. It's pretty cool that the game is flexible enough that you and your friend don't even have to be in the same place. You can choose to take on different tasks and not be in each other's vicinity. While co-op mode generally add to the overall experience, it's hard to say it makes a huge difference considering it doesn't fix the game's numerous other problems.
If you can endure the boring main quest to the end, you are rewarded with a horrid ending. I'm not talking about an ending movie. I won't give anything away, but it's important to note that there isn't a final confrontation. After pouring hours into a boring campaign and exploring mundane side quests, Fable 2 simply continues to underwhelm with a slow boring end to the game that you have little control over. Well, at least the game's boring features are consistent from its beginning to its ultimate ending.
The game's vast world includes a wide variety of landscapes. From the dreary swamps to the lush hilly areas to the dark caves lit by torchlight, the world of Fable 2 is a beautiful place to explore. The only downside is that its ambitious long draw distances coupled with numerous enemies do create noticeable framerate hiccups throughout the quest.
Overall, Fable 2 promises a lot. It allows you to explore towns and make many choices. There are many side quests, jobs, businesses to buy and people to interact with, but none of these distractions are interesting. The main quest and its combat system have a wide variety of skills and enemies to fight but none really differentiate themselves from each other. The end result is a game that fails to entertain or involve you regardless of what you are doing in the game. It simply isn't fun, no matter what you do or what choices you make in its elaborate world.
Make sure to visit our site to also view the game's video review, gameplay videos and images.
Roger Riley (aka Rabid Rabbit)
PoweredUpGamers.com [http://www.poweredupgamers.com]
I'm an avid gamer that's gotten tired of extremely predictable inflated review scores by the large video game sites. I started my own site, PoweredUpGamers.com, with a friend of mine to provide truly objective game reviews and opinions so gamers can read the truth about a game before buying it. If you are like many gamers and agree with these often differing and more critical opinions, we welcome you to visit our site. In addition to written reviews, we also have video reviews, opinions, a blog, and game images. Our growing community enjoys posting comments in articles and the forums and playing games in our arcade while earning points for their accounts.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roger_Riley
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